Category: Israeli governmental policies

Mohammed suffered a stroke, but Israel says he’s not ill enough for his son to get a travel permit to visit him. He needs care, but that is irrelevant. According to Israeli criteria, travel permits are only granted if first-degree relatives are dead or dying.

Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. One of the Israeli accusations is that she attended a book fair…

As Palestinians in Hebron navigate life without the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) observers, it is worth looking back on how oppressive and violent life was even with outsiders watching. Eric Garner would find the city eerily familiar.

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) has observed & documented Israeli violations of international law for 22 years. Netanyahu has cancelled their mandate following a leaked TIPH report of widespread Israeli abuse. Palestinians fear the worst without the watchful eye of TIPH; Israeli settlers say it will be “a breath of fresh air.”

With a 4% approval rate on building permit applications from Palestinians, and application costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, a large number of Palestinians make the risky decision to build without a permit. When Hassan Othman’s “illegal” home was discovered, he saved part of the $80 thousand demolition fee by hiring equipment to do it himself.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are constantly reminded of the fragility and conditionality of our (second-class) Israeli citizenship, and the illegitimacy of our Palestinian identity – and that’s amplified as elections approach.

The Palestinian identity of Israeli citizens is conceptualized as a perpetual threat precisely because it resists the constant revisionist efforts of the state. By virtue of existing, Palestinians contest the erasure of their own narratives and histories.

Intellectual honesty is about confronting those things that make us uncomfortable, not ignoring them. Israel arrests Palestinian children; see 7 of the many videos of these actions. The US gives Israel over $10 million per day and Congress is currently considering legislation to give Israel even more. That makes it obligatory for Americans to learn the facts, and act on them.

The question “Does Israel have the right to exist?” is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies. Anyone who does not answer with a resounding Yes is guaranteed the label “anti-Semite.”
This was Tamika Mallory’s recent predicament – but she went in full speed and declared that “all people have the right to exist.”
The proper question is, “Is the way in which Israel exists right?”

Ahmad was a boxing champion-in-the-making. Israel had refused to let him exit Gaza to participate in international competitions. Now Ahmed is wheelchair-bound after Israeli soldiers shot him with exploding bullets in both legs during Great March of Return protests.

45 children were killed in the Gaza Strip since March 30; in the overwhelming majority of cases, DCIP was able to confirm children did not present any imminent, mortal threat or threat of serious injury when killed by Israeli forces.

The report concludes Israeli forces and officials are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international law for the killing of Palestinian child protesters in Gaza.

A hospital anniversary celebration attended by “dozens of people,” sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, in occupied East Jerusalem was intolerable for Israel. The reason: it would include “Palestinian sovereign symbols such as: playing the Palestinian national anthem, political speeches on behalf of the PA and participation of Palestinian officials.”

The shut-down was ordered because an Israeli law forbids the PA “to hold an assembly or activity within the State of Israel.”

The world (except for Israel) considers East Jerusalem to be occupied, and its annexation to be illegal. That is, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli military courts not only have a 99% conviction rate when it comes to Palestinian prisoners, but in many cases they also impose exorbitant fines and unreasonable prison sentences. Last month, one Palestinian was convicted of throwing a stone at security forces from an unknown distance. The stone did not hit anyone and caused no damage. He was sentenced to six months and a day in prison and fined 2,000 shekels (about $500).

Operation Cast Lead (winter 2008-9) is emblematic of everything that is wrong with Israel’s approach to Gaza. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a political conflict to which there is no military solution. Yet Israel persists in shunning diplomacy and relying on brute military force – and not as a last resort but as a first resort.

Operation Cast Lead, the first of several incursions by Israel, killed 1,417 Palestinians and just 13 Israelis. Chillingly, the generals call their repeated bombardments ‘mowing the lawn’

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